This is the track which I wrote at 4:00am a few weeks back. About 90% of the words and the guitar riff in its entirety came to me as a trade-off for my lack of sleep that night. Unusually, I didn’t write it with a guitar in my hands or seated at a piano; it just arrived in my head. At first I thought the riff was a Beatlesesque one, but as soon as I played it on my acoustic guitar later that morning I realised that it was a classic Led-Zeppelin-style riff and the rawness of the vocal line left me in no…
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The Anatomy of a Song - "If You Give Your Love"
The first in an occasional series of posts where I detail how a song was, or is being, written:
I was thinking of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”. I’d always admired its stark simplicity, both musically and lyrically, because I tend to over-think lyrically and use chord patterns which are a little out of the ordinary rather than simple diatonic chords. A song like this is useful to have as a touchstone, an antidote for complexity and as a reminder that “less” truly is “more”.
I came up with the first line –…
"Caught in the Glare" - my new track.
I'm rather pleased with this one. I think it's probably the most complete song I've yet produced.
The song's genesis came about from a number of different directions. Firstly, I read an article about the then Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, where she was described as "looking stunned like some fluffy bunny caught in the headlights of a truck". Also, as with all my songs, there is a personal element which I shan't go into here. Early on as I was mulling over ideas while walking in the…
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